


What John Is Doing Up There

by roquentine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 07:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8523997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roquentine/pseuds/roquentine
Summary: John takes alone time in the upstairs bedroom, and Sherlock is annoyed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> (Originally part of a single post of [Tumblr](http://roquentine19.tumblr.com/) ficlets that got a little too unwieldy.)

_“Sherlock.”_

Sherlock freezes. How does John know he is out here? He was being so stealthy.

“Stop lurking outside the door and go downstairs. I told you, I’ll be down for tea.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need help?” Sherlock asks brightly.

“No. Go away.”

Sherlock heaves an audible sigh and stomps down the stairs. He flounces into his chair, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, sulking with every fiber of his being.

About a half hour later John trots down the same stairs, straight into the kitchen, and opens the fridge, pulling out some salad makings. He piles them on the kitchen table, then turns back and fills a large pot with water, setting it on the stove and clicking the gas burner to life.

Sherlock stares at him, his eyes narrowed.

“Will you make the garlic bread?” John asks pleasantly as he begins chopping vegetables.

Sherlock doesn’t answer. John opens the fridge once more to retrieve a bottle of white wine from the bottom shelf. “Look, I don’t know why you’re shooting daggers at me with your eyes, but please get past it quickly. Greg’s coming for dinner and I won’t have you giving me the silent treatment while he’s here.”

“What are you doing up there?”

John pours them each a glass of wine, then continues preparing the salad. “Sherlock, I know this is difficult for you to understand, but from time to time, I like to be on my own, to enjoy some privacy and solitude in my own home.”

“You didn’t answer my question. What are you _doing_ up there?”

“I did answer. Enjoying some privacy and solitude.”

Sherlock sighs his frustration and drops his feet to the floor. “But it… _bothers_ me now. When you’re here and not… _here_.”

“Sherlock. I sleep in your bed. I go out with you on cases. You’re usually hanging around Bart’s while I’m teaching. It is quite normal, healthy even, for us to spend the occasional hour or two apart, even when we’re both in the house. Now get over here and do whatever science it is you do that makes your garlic bread so vastly superior to mine.”

* * * * *

_“Sherlock.”_

“Are you having a wank?”

_“What?”_

“If you’re in there having a wank, I could help. I _want_ to help.”

“Go downstairs, Sherlock, right now.”

John comes down twenty minutes later and gapes at Sherlock, who is calmly sitting at his laptop.

“Why on _earth_ would you think I am having a wank up there?”

“It’s the most logical deduction.”

“Is it.”

“Yes. I’ve been observing. Over the last two weeks, you have gone up there six times, for anywhere from forty-five minutes to an hour, once for an hour and a half. You usually go up right after you get home from work and each time you are visibly stressed. When you come back down, you seem refreshed and are clearly more relaxed. Conclusion: a wank, and probably a nap.”

“I’m not wanking up there.”

“It’s okay if you are,” Sherlock says, without even bothering to pretend he means it.

“Sherlock, I promise, you have been witness to every orgasm I’ve had since I moved back in, except for a couple in the shower while you were in Dorset.”

Sherlock studies him, his eyebrows knotted together, and blinks a couple of times.

“What?” John says.

“Then what are you _doing_ up there?”

John sighs with his entire body and goes to put the kettle on.

* * * * *

_“Sherlock.”_

“What?” Sherlock replies innocently.

“Go away.”

“No. I’m enjoying some privacy and solitude.”

“In the hallway.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I give up. Just come in.”

Sherlock stops, and stares at the door. “It’s not locked?”

“Of course it’s not locked, you git. If you’re willing to accept the consequences, you can come in and see what I’m doing.”

“What consequences?”

“You’re ruining your Christmas present.”

“Oh, please,” Sherlock says as he twists the doorknob and pushes the door open, “I always know what you’re getting me anyway…”

And he stops one step into the room, stunned into silence by the image before him.

Which is John, sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard, knitting.

Not wanking. _Knitting._

At least, Sherlock is pretty sure he’s knitting. There seem to be more needles than necessary in John’s hands, and there are points at both ends of all the needles, and it all looks very askew, but trailing from it is a tube of dark blue knitted fabric with a clearly defined cable pattern travelling along its length.

“You’re… knitting.”

“Yes.”

“ _That’s_ what you’ve been doing up here? All this time? Knitting?”

“Yes. I’m knitting a jumper for you, for Christmas.” John sets down his calamitous-looking phalanx of needles and reaches for a larger, neatly folded pile of fabric, the same blue, the same cables. He shakes it open and it’s the front and back of a sweater, with a V in the neck on one side, and loose ends around the holes where sleeves will eventually go.

John slides from the bed and meets Sherlock at the door, holding the sweater body up against Sherlock’s chest. “I know you don’t usually wear knits, but I thought you might like it, just around the house, when it gets cold…”

Sherlock swallows and looks down at the richly textured pattern, then back at John, still dumbfounded.

“I thought this shade of blue would do amazing things to your eyes.” John’s own eyes crinkle. “I was right.”

“John…”

“This is what I’ve been doing up here, Sherlock. I’ve been making you a jumper.” He pulls it down from Sherlock’s body and hands it to him, going back to the bed. Sherlock feels the stitches and studies the pattern with wonder. “I’m still working on the sleeves,” John says, sitting on the edge of the bed and holding up the tube.

“How do you know how to knit?” Sherlock asks, moving to sit beside him, watching with fascination as John maneuvers yarn under and around and over the bewildering array of needles.

“My grandmother taught me when I was a kid,” John said. “I used to go to her house after school, and she was always knitting. I always liked doing things with my hands, building models, digging in the garden. A surgeon in waiting, I guess. So I asked her to teach me, and picked it up easily. I made a couple of scarves, some hats, a vest for my dad. But she died when I was in secondary school, and I got more into football, and I just fell out of the habit.”

Sherlock has at least figured out that whatever is happening with all the needles means that John can keep knitting the tube around and around, instead of back and forth. The needle in his left hand is suddenly free, and John pops it in his mouth for a second as he lines up the stitches on the next needle over, then takes the empty needle in his right hand and starts again.

“Then one night some yarn and needles showed up in a donation box on base in Afghanistan, and I started at it again. The guys gave me shit at first, but eventually got used to seeing me knit, and I even taught a couple of them to make scarves. It is very relaxing. You did get that deduction right.”

Sherlock’s eyes haven’t left John’s hands, but then a realization dawns, and he looks up. “The jumpers you wear? You made all those?”

John laughs. “Not all of them, no. Some of them. The one I wore that Christmas, before…” He trails off. “But this is the first one I’ve made since I moved back in. Or it will be, if you will ever leave me to finish it in peace.”

Sherlock solemnly hugs the unfinished sweater to his chest, then leans into John a little. “Except… now that I’ve ruined the surprise… will you come work on it downstairs?” He turns his mouth up to John’s cheek, nuzzling a kiss along his jaw. “I miss you when you’re up here,” he whispers.

“So I’ve gathered,” John says quietly, turning his head to meet Sherlock’s mouth for a proper kiss. “Yes, I’ll come work on it downstairs.” They share another kiss, then a third, before Sherlock gets up and heads for the door.

“I’ll be down in a minute, okay?” John calls after him. “I’m just going to have a wank first…”

(They’re both quite lucky all the needles are out of the way by the time Sherlock tackles him to the bed.)

  
  
  



End file.
